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Free/Cheap/Trial Software & Resources
Software: 3D Modeling & Animation:  

 

Free 6 Month license of Maya
A great offer with a possible catch. Yes this offer is true, but you have to sign up for a free account with Autodesk and there is a "print banner" on the output. More on that later. Read more and sign up now!
Free 6 Month license of 3ds max
A great offer with a possible catch. Yes this offer is true, but you have to sign up for a free account with Autodesk and there is a "print banner" on the output. More on that later. Read more and sign up now!
Award-winning Autodesk® Maya® PLE software is a powerful, integrated 3D modeling, animation, effects, and rendering solution. Because Maya is based on an open architecture, all your work can be scripted or programmed using a well-documented and comprehensive API (application programming interface), or one of two embedded scripting languages. Trial Version    
  Autodesk Combustion
The Autodesk® Combustion® 30-day trial provides free** access to the software for noncommercial use. Autodesk® Combustion® software is an all-in-one professional compositing application designed to meet the needs of the world’s most demanding artists.
  Autodesk ImageModeler
The Autodesk® ImageModeler™ 2009 30-day evaluation version is a fully functional version of the ImageModeler software that gives you free* access to the most recent version of ImageModeler for noncommercial use. This evaluation software is ideal for 3D graphics and architectural students, design, and visualization professionals, and others.
  Autodesk MotionBuilder
The Autodesk® MotionBuilder® 2009 30-day trial software is a fully functional version of MotionBuilder 3D character animation software that provides free** access to MotionBuilder for noncommercial use. The trial software gives 3D graphics and animation students, and industry professionals, the opportunity to explore all aspects of MotionBuilder software.
  Autodesk Mudbox
Autodesk® Mudbox™ 30-day trial provides free** access to Mudbox 2009 for non-commercial use. The trial is available for Microsoft® Windows XP/Vista operating system.
Free 3ds max Digimation Plugins
Digimation pioneered the plug-in business for 3ds Max. To date, we’ve released over 50 products and now we’re offering a collection of twelve tried and true favorites to the 3D community for free!
Free Ivy Generator
An Ivy generator for your favorate 3D modeling program. The result is a small tool allowing a virtual ivy to grow in your 3d world. Video Demo 01, 02, 03.
trueSpace3.2, a program which in 1997 Computer Graphics Magazine described as: "a remarkable program that stands out for its modeless interface and price-performance accomplishments....there's no question that at a suggested retail price of $795, this program delivers value that is tough to beat." Now you can have this remarkable 3D authoring tool for free! Anim8or is a 3D modeling and character animation program that I have written over the past couple of years, not as a commercial endeavor, but because I love 3D graphics, animation, and programming. 
  3D Modeling:    
Terragen™ is a scenery generator for Windows and the Mac OS. Terragen is free for personal non-commercial use. Free Bryce 3D 5.5 for Mac OS X 10.2/10.3/10.4 only.
Autodesk® MudboxTM is the first advanced, high resolution brush-based 3D sculpting software that is built from the ground up to address the needs of the professional digital sculptor.

A 30 day full working trail version can be downloaded here.
When you download the trial version of ZBrush, you download pure creativity. ZBrush 2 is the latest release in our pursuit of innovative and powerful software tools for artists. Step into the future of digital art with ZBrush 3 now. Its a 30 day trial version.
The Personal Learning Edition (PLE) is a fully functional version of Vue 6 Infinite/xStream SketchUp 6. Developed for the conceptual stages of design, Google SketchUp is a powerful yet easy-to-learn 3D software tool that combines a simple, yet robust tool-set with an intelligent drawing system that streamlines and simplifies 3D design.
Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.    
  Compositing:    
The Pixel Farm Ltd., a leading developer of advanced image processing tools, announced today the immediate availability of PFTrack 4.1 Personal Learning Edition (PLE). The free learning edition of The Pixel Farm’s industry-leading tracking and match moving application allows students, digital artists and facilities to evaluate, learn and master PFTrack 4.1 without the need for a permanent or temporary software license. Wax is a high performance and flexible video compositing and special effects software.
  Screen Capture:    
With the smartest screen recording tools on the planet, Camtashia Studio makes everything from training videos to Power Point presentations to lectures look better, reach more people, and pack more punch. Which makes you look even smarter, too. Free screen capture and sharing software. The concept of Jing is the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere. Mac & PC.
  2D Paint:    
Download your free 90-day trial version of the recently launched, award-winning Corel Painter X—the world's most powerful painting and illustration software ArtRage2, the easy to use, stylish painting package that lets you get painting from the moment you open it up. You can paint with oils, sketch with pencils, sprinkle glitter, and more. You can paint with gold leaf, silver foil, and other metallic colors. You can even load in your photos as Tracing Images to help you recreate them as paintings. $25.00
Project Dogwaffle 1.2- Free Painting and Animation Software for PC by Dan Ritchie for people who love to Draw, Sketch, Animate and Paint, but without the costly mess, the occasional spills or the funny fumes. DrawPlus is the amazing drawing and graphics software that enables you to create stunning vector graphics, family trees, room layouts and even web animations.
  Special FX Software:    
Introducing WinMorph is a high performance morphing and warping software. With over 400,000 downloads and much more distributed through PC magazines and their CDROM's, WinMorph enjoys a very wide user base, have been used in movies such as Dreamcatcher and real life projects such as road shows for promoting products. Debugmode FrameServer is a plugin which will allow NLE's to do FrameServing, Image Sequence export and AudioServing.
Faceworx is a free Software which creates a 3D head out of two standard 2D photos.You need two well illuminated pictures; one from the front (mug shot style) and one from the side. The software demands some skills in placing reference points and marking the contours of the face; mouth, nose, ears and eyes. The final 3D portrait can be saved and exported in the well known OBJ format.    
  2D Image& Photo Manipulation:    
PhotoPlus is the amazing photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance digital photos, create stunning bitmap graphics and even web animations.    
  Writing tools:    
Celtx is the world's first fully integrated solution for media pre-production and collaboration. It replaces old fashioned 'paper, pen & binder' media creation with a digital approach to writing and organizing that's more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share.    
  Free Music:    
Christopher Willits has been instrumental in redefining the guitar in the digital age. Using custom-built software, Willits morphs his guitar playing into warm folded rhythms of texture and melody. Willits defies genre distinctions while still defining a sound of his own. His guitar lines fold and weave into each other creating complex patterns of interlocking rhythm, melody, and texture. AudioCookbook.org is a non-profit resource for music and sound enthusiasts made possible by contributions from Unearthed Music.
  2D & 3D CAD / Model Viewers:    
Right Hemisphere's Deep View is a free viewer that lets you easily view and interact with 2D and 3D graphics in Microsoft™ Power Point™, Word™, and Excel™. Autodesk® Design Review software is the all-digital way to view, print, measure, mark up, and revise 2D and 3D designs without the original design creation software. Communication about designs has never been this easy.
Free version of Inventor LT Autodesk® Inventor LT™ makes it easy to create, share, and edit 3D part models from different CAD systems. Inventor LT helps reduce the hassles and headaches of working in an environment with many disparate CAD systems. DWG TrueView™ Use this FREE* download to accurately view, plot, and publish authentic DWG and DWF files. And now, DWG TrueView incorporates all the functionality of DWG TrueConvert.
Free ArchiCAD11 - 3D Architectural Design software. You can apply for a one-year renewable serial number. You only need to provide proof of your student or teacher status to receive your one-year license.    
  Presentation Software:    
Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc).    
  CAD Software:    
Draft IT is a FREE CAD software application. It is a powerful and easy-to-use 2D CAD system suitable for all users, in the office or at home. Solid Edge 2D Drafting- Whether you are using 2D across your company or for a specific 2D design process, Solid Edge 2D Drafting will give you an immediate advantage with production-proven capabilities including drawing layout, Goal Seeking, diagramming, and dimensioning.  It is fully compliant with ISO, ANSI, BSI, DIN, JIS and UNI, and it's absolutely FREE to download and use. 
Vico CAD Software (student one-year renewable license)    
  Textures:    
EVERMOTION gives you an unique chance to download free collection of hdri maps, which you can burn on CD. It is non tested hdri maps done by Evermotion team. Taste and write what do you think about it on forum. Hurry up - put your friends on! 2Textured- Over 2700 items available for free download.
  Stock Photos:    
Stock.XCHNG, the leading FREE stock photo site! Whether you just want to browse our huge image gallery or want to share your personal photos with others, this is the site for you!    
  3D Models:    
E-interiors.net. Free 2D CAD files and 3D models for interiors. Access the database searching the machocatagories you will find products from the main manufactures worldwide. 3DM3.com- A small variety of 3D models with color thumbnails
  Software Add-ons':    
SketchUp Component Libraries.
Bonus packs-These are pre-drawn objects (like trees, cars and people) that are useful for creating reusable models to be placed within other models.
   

3D Graphics:
Anim8or - http://www.anim8or.com/
Blender - http://www.blender3d.org/
gmax - http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/
Maya Personal Learning Ed. - http://www.alias.com/eng/products-s...ple/index.shtml
Now3D - http://digilander.libero.it/giulios/Eng/homepage.htm
SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP - http://www.softimage.com/products/exp/v3/
Wings 3D - http://www.wings3d.com/

Anti-Virus:
AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com/
Avast - http://www.avast.com/i_idt_1018.html
AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/

Anti Spyware:
Ad-aware - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
CWShredder - http://www.download.com/CWShredder/...4-10301586.html
Diet K - http://www.dietk.com/
HiJackThis - http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html
SpyBot Search & Destroy - http://spybot.safer-networking.de/
SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
SpywareGuard - http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html
MS Anti-Spyware(beta) - http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/s...re/default.mspx

IRC Clients:
BersIRC - http://www.bersirc.com/
HydraIRC - http://www.hydrairc.com/
TinyIRC - http://www.tinyirc.net/
XChat - http://www.xchat.org/

Audio Players:
1by1 - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch
Foobar 2000 - http://www.foobar2000.org/
iTunes - http://www.apple.com/itunes/
Jet Audio Basic - http://www.jetaudio.com/
Musik - http://musik.berlios.de/
QCD Player - http://www.quinnware.com/
Sonique - http://sonique.lycos.com/
Winamp - http://www.winamp.com/

Audio Tools:
Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
CDex - http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/
dBpowerAMP Music Converter - http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm
EAC - http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
Encounter 2003 - http://www.waschbusch.com/
GermaniXEncoder - http://www.germanixsoft.de/
K-MP3 - http://www.katarncorp.com/
KraMixer - http://www.kramware.com/
ModPlug Tracker http://www.modplug.com/
MP3 Book Helper - http://mp3bookhelper.sourceforge.net/
MP3 Tag - http://www.mp3tag.de/
mp3DirectCut - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch/
MP3Gain - http://www.geocities.com/mp3gain/
mp3Trim - http://www.logiccell.com/~mp3trim/
MusicBrainz - http://musicbrainz.org/
Rarewares - http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/
SoundEngine Free - http://www.cycleof5th.com/en/index.htm
TagScanner - http://xdev.narod.ru/tagscan_e.htm
The GodFather - http://users.otenet.gr/~jtcliper/tgf/

CD/DVD Burning:
Burn4Free - http://www.burn4free.com/
Burnatonce - http://www.burnatonce.com/
CDBurnerXP - http://hem.bredband.net/cdburnerxp/
CDRDAO - http://cdrdao.sourceforge.net/
CDR Tools Frontend - http://demosten.com/cdrfe/
Deepburner - http://www.deepburner.com/
DVD Decrypter: http://www.dvddecrypter.com/
Easy Burning, DropCD & Audio CD - http://www.paehl.de/cdr

Compression / Decompression:
7-zip - http://www.7-zip.org/
bzip2 - http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2/index.html
FilZip - http://www.filzip.com/
IZArc - http://www.florida.plus.com/izarc/
QuickZip - http://www.quickzip.org/
TUGZip - http://www.tugzip.com/
UltimateZIP - http://www.ultimatezip.com/
UPX - http://upx.sourceforge.net/
Zip&Go - http://www.handybits.com/zipngo.htm
Zipgenius - http://www.zipgenius.it/

Defrag Software:
DIRMS & Buzzsaw - http://www.dirms.com/
OpenVMS - http://www.execsoft.com/freeware/freeware.asp

Desktop Enhancements:
CursorXP - http://www.stardock.com/products/cursorxp/download.html
MobyDock - http://www.mobydock.com/
tclock2 - http://home.inreach.com/2tone/tclock2/tclock2.htm

Download managers:
Fresh Download - http://www.freshdevices.com/freshdown.html
LeechGet - http://www.leechget.net/en/
Net Transport - http://lycos26486.l78.lycos.com.cn/default.htm
Star Downloader - http://www.stardownloader.com/downloads.php
wackget - http://millweed.com/projects/wackget/
wget - http://xoomer.virgilio.it/hherold/
Free Download Manager - http://freedownloadmanager.org

Encryption and data security:
Axcrypt - http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/
Blowfish Advanced CS- http://web.bsn.ch/lasse/bfacs.htm
Eraser - http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/default.php
File Shredder - http://www.sys-shield.com/fileshredder.htm
GnuPG - http://www.gnupg.org/
PGP Freeware - http://www.pgp.com/products/freeware.html
WindowsCleaner - http://www.winnowsoft.com/internet-eraser.htm

File Managers:
2xExplorer - http://netez.com/2xExplorer/
A43 - http://www.shawneelink.net/~bgmiller/
Gyula's Navigator - http://www.wanari.com/
JExplorer - http://home.megapass.co.kr/~woosjung/
MeeSoft Commander - http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/

File repair and recovery:
PC Inspector File Recovery - http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

Firewalls:
Kerio (Kerio Personal Firewall is FREE for home and personal use) - http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html
Outpost Firewall (version 1 is free) - http://www.agnitum.com/download/outpost1.html
Sygate (FREE for personal use) - http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm
Zonealarm Basic firewall - http://www.zonelabs.com/store/conte...reeDownload.jsp

FTP Clients:
Filezilla! - http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla
SmartFTP - http://www.smartftp.com/
CoreFTP - http://www.coreftp.com

FTP Servers:
FileZilla - http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
GuildFTPD - http://www.totalshareware.com/asp/d...pplication=8334
Quick 'n Easy FTP Server - http://www.pablovandermeer.nl/ftp_server.html
SlimFTPd - http://www.whitsoftdev.com/slimftpd
WarFTPD - http://www.jgaa.com/

HTML Editors:
1st page 2000 - http://www.evrsoft.com/download.shtml
AceHTML - http://freeware.acehtml.com/download.html
Aracnophilia - http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/
HTML-Kit - http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
Selida - http://www.amaryllis.8m.com/
Trellian webPAGE - http://webpage.vendercom.com/
TSW WebCoder - http://www.tsware.net/

Image viewers:
Ahaview - http://www.aha-soft.com/ahaview/ahaviewfree.exe
Irfanview - http://www.irfanview.com/
SlowView - http://www.slowview.at/
XNView - http://www.xnview.com/

The freeware list continues....

Instant Messenger:
Gaim - http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
Miranda IM - http://www.miranda-im.org/
Rhymbox - http://www.rhymbox.com/
PSI - http://psi.affinix.com/
Trillian Basic - http://trillian.cc/downloads
Google Talk - http://www.google.com/talk/

Internet Explorer Front-Ends:
Avantbrowser - http://www.avantbrowser.com/
MyIE2 - http://www.myie2.com/
SlimBrowser - http://www.flashpeak.com/sbrowser/sbrowser.htm
maxthon browser - http://www.maxthon.com/

Mail programs:
i.Scribe - http://www.memecode.com/
Mahogany Mail - http://mahogany.sourceforge.net/
Pegasus Mail - http://www.pmail.com/
Thunderbird - http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/

Anti-spam programs:
K9 - http://www.keir.net/k9.html
MailWasher- http://www.mailwasher.net/
POPFile - http://popfile.sourceforge.net/
SpamBayes - http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

Network Tools:
CMDTime NTP Utility - http://www.softshape.com/download/
Ethereal Protocol Analyzer - http://www.ethereal.com/
NMap - http://www.insecure.org/nmap/
Ntop - http://www.ntop.org
PingPlotter - http://www.pingplotter.com
PuTTY - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty
RAS Graph & Stats - http://forum.flashfxp.com/showthrea...=&threadid=2400
RealVNC - http://www.realvnc.com/
TightVNC - http://www.tightvnc.org/
UltraVNC - http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/
WinSCP - http://www.winscp.com/

Office Suite:
602PC Suite free edition - http://www.software602.com/products/pcs/download.html
AbiWord - http://www.abiword.com/
Open Office - http://www.openoffice.org/

Partition Managers:
Partition Resizer - http://zeleps.com/
Ranish Partition Manager - http://www.ranish.com/part/
TestDisk - http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html

PDF Utilities:
Free PDF - http://www.webxd.com/zipguy/frpdfdl.htm
Ghostscript/GSView - http://www.ghostscript.com/
PDF 995 - http://www.pdf995.com/
PDFCreator - http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

Photo manipulation and image design:
ColorPic - http://www.iconico.com/colorpic/
Pixia - http://www.ab.wakwak.com/~knight/
Sodiodi - http://www.sodipodi.com/
The Gimp - http://www.gimp.org/
Tuxpaint - http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/tuxpaint
Paint.NET - http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/

Programming:
ActivePerl - http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl
Dev C++ - http://www.bloodshed.net/
Dev Pascal - http://www.bloodshed.net/
Eclipse - http://www.eclipse.org/
Freepascal - http://www.freepascal.org/
jEdit - http://www.jedit.org/
PHP Hypertext Parser - http://www.php.net/
Python - http://www.python.org/
Ruby - http://www.dm4lab.to/~usa/ruby/index_en.html
SharpDevelop - http://www.icsharpcode.net/opensource/sd/

Pop-up Blockers:
Google Toolbar - http://www.google.com/
NoAds - http://www.southbaypc.com/NoAds/
PopUp Stopper - http://www.panicware.com/product_psfree.html
Privoxy - http://www.privoxy.org/
Proxomitron - http://www.proxomitron.info/

System Information and monitoring:
AIDA32 - http://www.aida32.hu/
CPU-Z - http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
Gkrellm - http://bill.nalens.com/
Motherboard monitor - http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=311
WCPUID - http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA00...c/download.html

Video codes:
DivX Codec - http://www.divx.com/divx/?src=topta...from_/index.php
FFDSHOW - http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow
Kazaa Lite Codec Pack - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/
Nimo Codec Pack - http://www.divx-digest.com/software/nimo_pack.html
Quicktime Alternative - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/
Real Player Alternative - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/
xVid - http://www.3dbuzz.com/xvid/XviD-1.0.3-20122004.exe

Video players:
BsPlayer - http://www.bsplayer.org/
Cygwin MPlayer - http://armory.nicewarrior.org/projects/cygmp/
MaximusDVD - http://www.maximusdvd.com/
Media Player Classic - http://sourceforge.net/project/show...?group_id=82303
VideoLan - http://www.videolan.org/

Video tools:
DVD Shrink - http://www.dvdshrink.org/
DScaler - http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/
FlasKMPEG - http://www.flaskmpeg.net
GSpot - http://www.headbands.com/gspot/
VirtualDub - http://www.virtualdub.org/
VirtualDubMod - http://sourceforge.net/project/show...?group_id=65889
xviD - http://www.roeder.goe.net/~koepi/xvid.shtml
Zwei-Stein Video Editor - http://www.thugsatbay.com/software/index.html

Web browsers:
Firefox - http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Internet Explorer - http://www.Mcft.com/ie
K-Meleon - http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/
Mozilla - http://www.mozilla.org/
Netscape - http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp
Opera - http://www.opera.com/

Web servers:
Abyss - http://abyss.sourceforge.net/
Aprelium Abyss - http://www.aprelium.com/
Apache - http://httpd.apache.org/
Sambar - http://www.sambar.com/
Savant - http://savant.sourceforge.net/
TinyWeb - http://www.ritlabs.com/tinyweb/index.html

Webcam Software:
booruWebCam - http://www.booru.net/
Pryme - http://www.hilo.dk/pryme/

Checksum Utilities:
fsum - http://www.slavasoft.com/fsum/
hksfv - http://www.big-o-software.com/products/hksfv/
md5sum - http://www.etree.org/md5com.html
md5summer - http://www.md5summer.org/

General Utilities And Other Applications:
AnalogX - http://www.analogx.com/
AppRocket - http://www.candylabs.com/approcket/
Celestia - http://www.shatters.net/celestia
Cygwin - http://www.cygwin.com
Dirkey - http://www.protonfx.com/dirkey/
EditPad Lite - http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html
Inno Setup - http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
Memtest-86 - http://www.memtest86.com
MWSnap - http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html
NetTime - http://nettime.sourceforge.net
Nullsoft Installer - http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nsis
Peerguardian - http://xs.tech.nu/
QuickSFV - http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Mouse/4668/
png2ico - http://winterdrache.de/freeware/png2ico
Stickies - http://finiteloop.org/~btaylor/software/stickies/
Sysinternals - http://www.sysinternals.com/
TClockEx - http://www.rcis.co.za/dale/tclockex/index.htm
Vim - http://vim.sourceforge.net

 

All Autodesk products

 

 

 
 
   
      This page is courtesy of your Academic Director.